Boy King Of Tokyo - Bill Lloyd, Boy King Of Tokyo

Counting Sheep - Jason Falkner, All Quiet on Noise Floor

Ghosts In Your Head - Josh Fix, This Town Is Starting To Make Me Angry

Guy Fawkes Day - Paul Melancon, Slumberland

I Loved Everything - P. Hux, Purgatory Falls

I’m So In Love – Secret Powers, Lies And Fairy Tales

Into Your Eyes - Neon, Neon

My Little Gangsta - Jackdaw4, Bipolar Diversions

Roll Up My Sleaze - LL Cosmonaut (Paul Steel), Why X5

She Makes Love With Her Eyes - Boy-O-Boy, Giants Of Pop

Too Late For Us Now - Roger Joseph Manning Jr., The Land of Pure Imagination

When Girls Collide - Tiny Volcano, Tiny Volcano

Related articles

• The Weekly Mixtape: 12/16/11 (popdose.com)

Print PDF

Still here, huh? It’s almost the end of 2011 and we haven’t scared you off yet?

Sigh. Well, this ought to do it.

Beat Farmers – Hollywood Hills

Bonzo Dog Band – I’m The Urban Spaceman

Charlie Dore – Pilot Of The Airwaves

Cornelius Bros And Sister Rose – Too Late To Turn Back Now

Edward Bear – The Last Song

Gallery – It’s So Nice To Be With You

Jigsaw – Sky High

Jr Walker And The All Stars – What Does It Take

Juice Newton – It’s A Heartache

King Harvest – Dancin’ In The Moonlight

Paper Lace – The Night Chicago Died

Redbone – Come And Get Your Love

The First Class – Beach Baby

The Stampeders – Sweet City Woman

Streetband With Paul Young – Toast

Print PDF

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

      Wilfred Owen, The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

Begin with two minutes of silence.

Intro: Trumpet plays the Last Post – the Cotswolds, UK (via one-minute vacation)
Roger Hodgson – Had A Dream (Sleeping With the Enemy) from In The Eye Of The Storm (1984)
Henry Burr and the Columbia Stellar Quartet – Sons of Liberty (Columbia cylinder, 1917)
Suzanne Vega – The Story of Isaac from Tower of Song: Songs of Leonard Cohen (1995)
The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Green Fields of France (No Man’s Land) from Night of a Thousand Candles (1985)
The Decemberists – This Is Why We Fight from The King Is Dead (2011)
Tim Buckley – No Man Can Find The War from Goodbye and Hello (1967)
The Dixie Chicks – Travelin’ Soldier from Home (2001)
Stan Ridgway with the Fowler Brothers – The Cannon Song from Lost In The Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill (1985, out of print)
Steve Earle with the Pogues – Johnny Come Lately from Copperhead Road (1990)
The Violinaires – Another Soldier Gone (1954 single)
Chumbawamba – Hanging On the Old Barbed Wire from English Rebel Songs (1988)
Sixteen Horsepower – The Partisan from Leonard Cohen En Boca De… (1998)
Billy Bragg – Between the Wars from Back To Basics (1993)
The Four Vagabonds – Four Buddies from a 1943 radio broadcast, collected on Complete Recorded Works Volume 3
Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris – 1917 from Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions (1999)
Big Country – Remembrance Day from The Seer (1986)
Tom Waits – A Soldier’s Things from Swordfishtrombones (1983)
Chris Whitley – Cool Wooden Crosses from Terra Incognita (1997)
Frank Miller – Stony Broke In No Man’s Land (78 RPM single, 1921)
Richard Thompson – Al Bowlly’s In Heaven from Daring Adventures (1986)
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – Veteran’s Day Poppy from Trout Mask Replica (1970)
coda: Chaz Jankel – Peace, At Last from Chaz Jankel (1980, out of print)

for Claude Stanley Choules, last surviving combat veteran of World War I, died 5 May 2011, aged 110.

Print PDF

In this week’s AM Gold roundtable, I dared to speak ill of Shirley Bassey’s iconic theme for “Goldfinger.” My contention was that, if this song were not the theme tune for a hugely popular movie, the song wouldn’t have had a hope in hell of cracking the US top ten on its own merits as a song.

Which got me to thinking about what tunes might, while enjoyable purely as excellent songs in their own right, might also make fantastic theme songs for nonexistent James Bond movies…

Intro: John Barry and His Orchestra – James Bond (from Doctor No) from The Best Of Bond … James Bond (1989)
Queen – Who Wants To Live Forever? from A Kind of Magic (1991)
The Silencers – Bulletproof Heart from Dance to the Holy Man (1991)
Gorillaz – Tomorrow Comes Today from Gorillaz (2001)
The Armoury Show – Higher than the World from Waiting for the Floods (1985, out of print)
U2 – Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me from Batman Forever OST (1995)
Luscious Jackson – Naked Eye from Fever In Fever Out (1996)
Digney Fignus – The Girl with the Curious Hand from Digney Fignus EP (1985, out of print)
The Specific Heats – My Secret Agent Days Are Numbered from Aboard a Spaceship of the Imagination (2006)
The Jam – The Eton Rifles from Setting Sons (1979)
Traffic – Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory from Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory (1973)
Pete Townshend – English Boy originally from Psychoderelict (1993), remixed and reissued on The Best of Pete Townshend: coolwalkingsmoothtalkingstraightsmokingfirestoking (1996)
Agent Orange – I Kill Spies (live) from Real Live Sound (1987)
Crime and the City Solution – The Sly Persuaders from Paradise Discothèque (1990)
Echo and the Bunnymen – The Cutter from Porcupine (1983)
The Police – Murder By Numbers from Synchronicity (1993)
The Rakes – Trouble from Ten New Messages (2007)
John Cale – The Chinese Envoy from Music For A New Society (1982, out of print)
Guided By Voices – Teenage FBI from Do the Collapse (1999)
Red Rockers – Good As Gold from Good As Gold (1983)
Kirsty MacColl – Can’t Stop Killing You from Titanic Days (1993)
Simple Minds – Sweat In Bullet (remix) original version released on Sons and Fascination (1981)
Coda: Ron Grainer with the Royal Philarmonic Concert Orchestra –Theme from The Prisoner from 100 Greatest TV Themes (2002)

Print PDF

Welcome to the last Friday of the summer of 2011, a season that has felt fairly apocalyptic for large portions of the U.S., ranging from natural disasters to political insanities, to the ten-year anniversary last week of a particular event we will not venture further into here. And why?

Fall is coming. Football is here. Baseball will be winding down soon. The summer movies are slowly making their way to home video and the new television season is upon us like a bird in flight that ate too many berries. The air is getting cooler and the leaf colors will soon be getting warmer (at least for us Northerners). It’s time to kick it back and relax it up, so give heed to this mix which has no agenda whatsoever other than to increase volume and decrease woe.

Enjoy the deluxeness!

Brazen Abbot featuring Joe Lynn Turner – Dreams from My Resurrection (2005)

ELO – Little Town Flirt from Discovery (remastered, 1979, 2001)

Fish – The Company from Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors (1989)

Kiss – Detroit Rock City (single edit) from Destroyer (1976)

Queen – Tear It Up from The Works (1982)

Spoon – Finer Feelings from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007)

Teenage Fanclub – I Don’t Want Control Of You from Songs From Northern Britain (1997)

The New Pornographers – Silver Jenny Dollar from Together (2010)

The Successful Failures – Waiting For A Ride from Three Nights (2011)

Urge Overkill – Somebody Else’s Body from Exit the Dragon (1995)

Yngwie Malmsteen featuring Goran Edman – I’m My Own Enemy from Fire & Ice (1992)

Related articles

• The Weekly Mixtape: Songs for a Weary Land (popdose.com)
• The Weekly Mixtape: 7/29/2011 (popdose.com)
• The Weekly Mixtape: 7/1/11 (popdose.com)

Print PDF

Like many other people, I found myself unable to enjoy music in the days following September 11, 2001. Part of it stemmed from the need for information – I was just too busy listening to news on the radio and looking for it on the Web and TV to bother with music. A bigger part of it, though, stemmed from being too shell-shocked at what I was seeing and hearing and reading – there seemed to be no relief anywhere, particularly not in a shiny plastic disc. I had a two-year-old son, and the idea that I’d brought a child into a world so clearly dangerous, so very much out of its collective mind, weighed on me. I drank to be able to sleep. I teared up every time I read a newspaper.

The following week, while doing some research on the Web, I stumbled upon an MP3 of Dan Bern’s “Hometown of the World,” a brand new song he had played on a live radio broadcast just days before. It was the anthem I hadn’t known I’d needed, a new “This Land is Your Land” for a nation seemingly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Slowly, music filtered back in; those sounds began to sound comforting. I shared some of those sounds with a handful of friends. I hoped we would all emerge stronger from that troubling period.

A decade on, I don’t think the nation has completely recovered from its 9/11-induced breakdown; we have lost much more than I think we’ll ever be able to regain. Whether terrorists ever manage to attack us again is almost beside the point; we’ve inflicted more damage on ourselves—in terms of intolerance, religiosity, and lives and families sacrificed in war—than any outside influence could inflict.

When I hear these songs, though—particularly in toto—I recall the sadness of those first weeks after 9/11, but I also recall the sliver of hope to be felt in the sight of total strangers coming together, comforting each other, standing vigil with one another, engaging in a shared sense of grief that for a moment seemed like it might lead to a long-term common purpose, a rebuilding not only of a few buildings, but of a fractious nation. Ten years have elapsed, and that sliver has never been smaller.

Dan Bern – Hometown of the World
Mark Eitzel – Proclaim Your Joy, from The Invisible Man
Guided By Voices – Hold on Hope, from Do the Collapse
Quasi – It’s Raining, from Sword of God
U2 – Walk On, from All that You Can’t Leave Behind
Beta Band – Won, from Hot Shots II
Weezer – Simple Pages, from Weezer (Green Album)
Whiskeytown – Don’t Be Sad, from Pneumonia
Spiritualized – Stop Your Crying, from Let It Come Down
Waterboys – My Love Is My Rock in the Weary Land, from A Rock in the Weary Land
Gillian Welch – Revelator, from Time (the Revelator)
Tori Amos – Time, from Strange Little Girls
Sarah Harmer – Uniform Grey, from You Were Here
The Orgone Box – Find the One, from The Orgone Box
Nick Drake – Things Behind the Sun, from Pink Moon
Peter Gabriel – Here Comes the Flood, from Shaking the Tree – 16 Golden Greats
Bob Dylan – Every Grain of Sand, from Shot of Love
Marvin Gaye – Save the Children, from What’s Going On
Aretha Franklin – Bridge Over Troubled Water, from The Very Best Of Aretha Franklin Vol. 2
Waterboys – My Lord What a Morning, from A Rock in the Weary Land

Print PDF

Some things to think about, as you celebrate Labor Day:

In 1955, nearly 35% of US wage and salary workers were represented by unions. The country was coming out of a recession, then, and US government — under a Republican president — was pouring billions of federal dollars into massive infrastructure programs and pursuing a common-sense regulatory agenda; the hard times of the 1930s was still strong in the memory of most of our legislators, and they were determined not to repeat the mistakes that led to the Great Depression. The result was one of the longest and most transformative economic booms in our history.

In 2011, the number of wage and salary workers with union representation dropped below 10%. In the last twenty years, the minimum wage, has in real terms, actually declined; the real value of the minimum wage has gone up by 21%, but the cost of living has increased by three times that amount, leaving low-wage workers falling further and further behind. It’s not because there’s no work getting done; overall productivity in the US has been boosted 80% since 1979, while income and wages overall have stagnated. (The income of the top 1% of earners, however, has increased by 240%.)

And in the face of this, there are voices — loud voices — insisting that the only way out our current economic slump is to roll back reforms and regulations, to disempower consumers and employees, to strip the power of collective bargaining from those lucky few who still have it. It is the unions, we are told, who are the real villains here. It is the unions, we are told, who are holding the recovery hostage. This in a country that still, alone among first-world economies, has no legal mandate to require employers to provide paid maternity leave, paid vacations, or even guaranteed time off each week.

(This article at Mother Jones has much more, including links to sources for all the stats quoted above. )

Here’s some music to listen to as you contemplate that, and decide for yourself whether it’s a tragedy or a farce.

Peter Blegvad – Something Else (Is Working Harder) from Just Woke Up (1995)
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band – The Hammer Song from Framed (1974)
Richard Thompson + Danny Thompson – Sweetheart on the Barricade from Industry (1997)
Vernon Reid et al. – Work Song from Weird Nightmare: Meditations On Mingus (1992)
Deborah Holland – I Am a Union Woman (Join the CIO) from The Panic Is On: Songs from the Great Depression (1997)
The Godfathers – Birth, School, Work, Death from Birth, School, Work, Death (1988)
Big Country – Steeltown from Steeltown (1984)
The Dubliners – Joe Hill re-released on 20 Greatest Hits (1996)
Stan Ridgway – The Overlords from Partyball (1991)
Oingo Boingo – Capitalism from Only A Lad (1981)
Wall of Voodoo – Dark as a Dungeon from Seven Days in Sammystown (1985)
The Police – Dead End Job re-released on Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings (1993)
Howard Tate – Chain Gang from Reaction (1969)
Todd Rundgren – Honest Work from A Cappella (1985)
Dire Straits – Industrial Disease from Love Over Gold (1982)
Rush – Working Man from Rush (1974)
The Church – Grind from Gold Afternoon Fix (1990)
The House Band – Pharaoh from The World Is A Wonderful Place: Songs of Richard Thompson (1996)
The Golden Palominos featuring Jack Bruce – (Something Else Is) Working Harder from Blast of Silence (1986)

Or download the full mix (82 minutes, suitable for your CD-burning needs).

Print PDF

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to a couple who told me that the first time they met, they couldn’t stand each other.  Or they saw each other but there was no spark; not even a little romantic interest.  But at some point, maybe just from being around each other for long enough, something changed.  And years later they can’t imagine being with anyone else.

So it is with a lot of the artists now in my regular rotation.  The first time I heard them I thought, “what is this crap?”.  Or I knew of them but never really bothered to give them a shot.  There’s only so many hours in the day, right?  But our paths kept crossing until one day, I got it.  The connection was formed, never to be broken.  I was, so to speak, in love at last.  Seems apropos so close to Valentine’s Day I guess.

My humble contribution to the Weekly Mixtape is a batch of songs that got me over the hump with some of my now-favorite artists.  These are the tracks that, after I heard them, meant there was no turning back.

1. Rush – “Xanadu”, from A Farewell to Kings (1977)
2. Pearl Jam – “Go”, from Vs. (1993)
3. Genesis – “The Musical Box”, from Nursery Cryme (1971)
4. King’s X – “Out of the Silent Planet”, from Gretchen Goes to Nebraska (1989)
5. Randy Newman – “Marie”, from Good Old Boys (1974)
6. King Crimson – “One More Red Nightmare”, from Red (1974)
7. XTC – “Love on a Farmboy’s Wages”, from Mummer (1983)
   
8. Can – “Vitamin C”, from Ege Bamyasi (1972)
9. The Who – “Our Love Was”, from The Who Sell Out (1967)
   
10. Steely Dan – “Bodhisattva”, from Countdown to Ecstasy (1973)
    
11. Chicago – “Poem for the People”, from Chicago II (1970)
12. The Zombies – “A Rose for Emily”, from Odessey and Oracle (1968)
13. Muse – “Knights of Cydonia”, from Black Holes and Revelations (2006)
14. Utopia – “Love in Action”, from Oops! Wrong Planet (1977)
15. Doves – “Catch the Sun”, from Lost Souls (2000)
16. Waylon Jennings – “Rainy Day Woman”, from The Ramblin’ Man (1974)
17. System of a Down – “Cigaro”, from Mezmerize (2005)
18. The Bad Plus – “Anthem for the Earnest”, from Suspicious Activity? (2005)
19. Opeth – “Death Whispered a Lullaby”, from Damnation (2003)
20. Stevie Wonder – “You’ve Got It Bad Girl”, from Talking Book (1972)
21. Bee Gees – “Nights on Broadway”, from Main Course (1975)
22. Frank Zappa – “Montana”, from Over-Nite Sensation (1973)
23. Porcupine Tree – “Deadwing”, from Deadwing (2005)
24. Wilco – “Either Way”, from Sky Blue Sky (2007)
25. Emerson, Lake & Palmer – “Karn Evil 9: First Impression, Part II”, from Brain Salad Surgery (1973)

Print PDF

Top Hat White Tie and Tails – Fred Astaire from the movie Top Hat (1935)

Leopard-skin Pill-box Hat – Bob Dylan from Blonde on Blonde (1966)

Big Man’s Hat – Charlie Peacock from The Secret of Time (1990)

Hold On To Your Hat – The Rolling Stones from Steel Wheels (1989)

Cap In Hand – The Proclaimers from Sunshine on Leith (1988)

The Fez – Steely Dan from The Royal Scam (1976)

Hard Hat Area – Alan Holdsworth from Hard Hat Area (1993)

The Hat – Ingrid Michaelson from Girls and Boys (2006)

Big Hat, No Cattle – Randy Newman from Bad Love (1999)

Don’t Touch My Hat – Lyle Lovett from The Road To Ensenada (1996)

Who The Cap Fit – Bob Marley and the Wailers from Rastaman Vibration (1976)

Hard Hat and a Hammer – Alan Jackson from Freight Train (2010)

When Everyone Wore Hats – Daniel Amos from Songs of the Heart (1995)

Goodbye Pork Pie Hat – Joni Mitchell from Mingus (1979)

Print PDF

“Firesuite” by Doves, from Lost Souls (2000)

“Contusion” by Stevie Wonder, from Songs in the Key of Life (1976)

“Anthem for the Earnest” by the Bad Plus, from Suspicious Activity? (2005)

“Fractured Mirror” by Ace Frehley, from Ace Frehley (1978)

“Ironside” by Quincy Jones, from Smackwater Jack (1971)

“Sunday Afternoon in the Park” by Van Halen, from Fair Warning (1981)

“Orchid” by Black Sabbath, from Master of Reality (1971)

“I Will Never Love Again” by Mark Knopfler, from The Princess Bride (1987)

“The Over the Hill Gang” by Sam Spence, from Autumn Thunder: 40 Years of NFL Films Music (2004)

“Long, Long Weary Day” by Tomahawk, from Anonymous (2007)

“Dirty Dozen” by London Elektricity, from Pull the Plug (1999)

“Station” by Russian Circles, from Station (2008)

“Meeting of the Spirits” by Mahavishnu Orchestra, from The Inner Mounting Flame (1971)

“Escape From the Island” by Kiss, from Music From “The Elder” (1981)

“Never Enough Neck Pt. 2″ by the Fucking Champs, from V (2002)

“Running on Three” by Brand X, from Unorthodox Behaviour (1976)

“La Villa Strangiato” by Rush, from Hemispheres (1978)

“Peaches en Regalia” by Frank Zappa, from Hot Rats (1969)

“Losfer Words (Big ‘Orra)” by Iron Maiden, from Powerslave (1984)

“Scuttle Buttin’” by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, from Couldn’t Stand the Weather (1984)

“Up Above the Rock” by Ray Bryant, from Up Above the Rock (1968)

“Bron-Yr-Aur” by Led Zeppelin, from Physical Graffiti (1975)

“The Call of Ktulu” by Metallica, from Ride the Lightning (1984)

Related articles

• Listening booth – Kiss at the Cow Palace, 1977 (grayflannelsuit.net)
• bLISTerd…The 10 Best Stevie Wonder Songs (popblerd.com)
• Remembering the unique stylings of MoWest (holykaw.alltop.com)

Print PDF